Because I publish so many personal stories here on Alex in Wanderland, I receive many of them back – in the comments, in my inbox, in person when I’m lucky enough to meet readers face to face. A lot of them are happy tales of love, travel, and adventure. But too, many are stories of struggle. (No surprise – sharing our stories is powerful and healing.) Stories of loss. Stories of betrayals and bad relationships. Stories of illness and frustrating injury and bodies letting us down. Stories of trying to claw out of bad day that turned into a bad week, a bad month, a bad year.

It’s easy to be happy when life is on the upswing. It’s easy to love when your heart has yet to be broken. It’s easy to be generous when blessings are abundant. It’s easy to feel like the risk was worth it when so far, it’s paying off.

But what about when it’s not?

Strolling through Los Angeles this fall, I stopped to take in a colorful mural. Emblazoned across it was a lesson life keeps insisting on teaching me: What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.

I smiled when I saw it. It’s the final line in a favorite poem from Charles Bukowski, “How is Your Heart?” Bukowski was an artist, a dreamer, a man who always struggled to live a full life. And thus he became the unlikely subject of my final post with Abbott Global, who I’ve teamed up with to talk about living your best life – in this case, even when it’s not easy.

My overall enchanted life has been peppered with a few acute heartaches. Some I’ve written about here. Some only a handful of people in the world know about. They humbled me. They shaped who I am. But first, they took life as I knew it and burned it to the ground.

When I was fourteen, my perfect-life bubble was burst by my parent’s incredibly traumatizing split. I never had that moment where mom and dad sit the kids down on the couch and tell them that they love them very much but no longer love each other. I used to be jealous of those kids. Instead, I had four years of brutal, heart-wrenching, raw chaos in which I was an active player in a game I never signed up for. It was a dark time, and when I recount some of the worst of my memories from it to close friends, they give me a look of surprise – a look that says, “…but you seem so well adjusted?”

The road to healing was a long one. Yet at twenty-six, I long ago stopped asking, “Why me? Why us? Why my family?” Why does any family grapple with addiction, heartbreak, and the eventual dissolution of what was once a happy home? Today, I see what happened as another layer in the fabric of my life. Today, I have fulfilling relationships with both my parents, who are perhaps the planet’s greatest examples of how to ask for and gracefully grant forgiveness. Today, any resentment I had towards those painful years was long ago replaced with gratitude. Gratitude for the fierce independence that I developed, gratitude for the forgiving heart I adopted, gratitude for the extended community of family friends that provided safe havens in our darkest hours, and mostly, gratitude for the motivation that burned inside me to get out and see the world.

nineteen and healing

Looking back, it’s hard not to correlate that time – my high school years – when my wanderlust grabbed fierce hold of me and my childhood home felt like a battleground. Suddenly, seeing the world seemed not like a lofty goal to pin on my dream board but an absolute, non-negotiable necessity to be obtained at any cost.

I wasn’t running away. I was looking for reassurance. Reassurance that the world is this infinite, grandiose masterpiece and I was nothing but a speck of a fiber of a brushstroke within it. I found that notion – that the world was endlessly huge and my life within it endlessly small – to be a great comfort. I believe my life has value and meaning. But what could be more liberating than the reminder and perspective that it is just one of seven billion lives that also have equal amounts of value and meaning?

In “How is Your Heart?,” Bukowski muses:

to awaken in a cheap room
in a strange city and
pull up the shade-
this was the craziest kind of
contentment

Like Bukowski, I found solace in travel, in getting lost, and in being anonymous. Yet there are few dead zones to which you cannot receive a frantic middle-of-the-night phone call. There is no corner of the world to which heartache cannot follow you. Had I traveled hoping to escape my pain and problems, I would have been sorely disappointed. Instead, I traveled to find the space – mentally and physically – that I needed to dive headfirst into them.

We can’t control the things that happen to us. But we can control the way we react to them. In fact, these are the periods that define us. How well do you live your life? How well do you live your life on the worst day of it?

Fire can destroy us. It can also give us heat and passion, and can power us forward and show us the path through darkness. We as a species are more resilient than we ever give ourselves credit for. In fact, psychologists have labeled a phenomenon they call Post Traumatic Growth, a term for the evolution of people who report feeling stronger and more fulfilled after traumas and tragedies. Richard Tedeschi, a professor of psychology and a leading expert on what he coins these “super survivors,” labels trauma as “a shock that ruptures the central story that you thought was your life.”

If you are walking through a fire of your own, however big or small, this is your time to rewrite your story. According to Tedeschi, the key to unlocking this hyper-resilience is a simple one. “The big factor that nurtures resilience, is unconditional love,” he reports.

Treat people around you with dignity and love, regardless of if they extend you the same respect. Nourish your body with good food and frequent movement. Find small, fleeting moments of joy even in the darkest hours – eventually they’ll grow into a larger light. Find forgiveness for the people who need it most – including yourself. Get lost in a remote corner of the world, and take time to explore both your destination and yourself. Push yourself to list the things you are grateful for, even when small graces are few and far between. Walk through the fire with your head held high, and arms outstretched to others who might be dusting off embers of their own. Your new story may surprise you.

“We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.” –Bukowski

I’ve partnered with Abbott to talk about the different ways I live fully. Missed my first post on what that means to me? Read it here. Missed my second post on all the gifts travel has given me? Read that one here, too.

Abbott knows that people all over the world have their own unique ideas on what living fully looks and feels like, and they even have a quiz to help you figure it out. Take the quiz—and then tell me what YOUlive for using #fullosophy on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

I so appreciate your honesty Alex. And I’m glad that you’ve chosen gratitude in the midst of struggle. This is a beautifully written post and now I’m desperate to read How is Your Heart?Wandering Whit recently posted..An Ode to Brisbane

This sentence – “Suddenly, seeing the world seemed not like a lofty goal to pin on my dream board but an absolute, non-negotiable necessity to be obtained at any cost.”

This brought tears to my eyes. It sounds like we had a similar experience as high schoolers- my whole family fell apart when I was 14 and I spent the next four years both grappling with family turmoil and traveling abroad as much as possible. People who knew me then always say I’m remarkably well-adjusted for the insanity I dealt with as a high schooler. I’m actually weirdly grateful I went through such an awful experience because it’s the reason I’ve traveled so much, and also it gave me confidence that no matter what happens, I’ll get through it. Thank you for writing such a heartfelt, honest and beautiful post.Ashley recently posted..2015 – A (Part-time) Traveler’s Review

Sounds like we will have a lot to chat about when we finally get a long-awaited drink someday 🙂 I agree, there is a wonderful confidence that comes from knowing you’ve survived some of life’s big curve balls.

It really is true what they say – the grass is always greener, right? I was one of the other types of children of divorce. I was 8 when my parents split, and they never fought in front of me. To me, my life was perfect and my parents were just as happy as I was. It was a devastating blow and an insanely quick turnaround that left me reeling. Within 5 months of being told, my world fell apart, I moved to an entirely different country with my mom, she remarried not too long afterwards, and I was blessed with a sister. It took me a long time to fully come to terms with all of this, and I can recall several times where I thought ‘it would have been so much better if I had seen some sign of it’. Truth is, it’s never easy, no matter which side you fall on. Oddly enough, since my dad stayed behind and I travelled as an unaccompanied minor to see him, my love of travel also blossomed from this. I just didn’t realize it for the longest time. It also gave me my independence and my confidence, too. Thank you for this post – you have so beautifully put into words the strange complexity of personal trauma, no matter what form it takes. It’s strange to think that something so dark and negative gave me so much I’m grateful for today.Marni recently posted..Blowing Rock, NC: Part III – A Surreal Painting

I know that feeling well, Marni. I also had a moment where a seemingly perfect childhood (well, at fourteen I wasn’t quite a child but close) was burst with a pin, and I had seen absolutely no warning of it whatsoever. The part I used to be jealous others didn’t have to go through was I played an active role in discovering the secrets that tore up my family, rather than being told about them by adults who seemed in charge of the situation — that part dragged on for four years. Divorce and separation in movies and on TV always seemed so quick in comparison, ha ha. Interesting to hear from so many travelers in these comments who found their independence and love of travel through tough times at home — I never would have made that connection before, and that’s what I love about blogging! <3

I love this post, Alex – it’s so poignant, and beautifully written. This line resonated with me especially – “I had four years of messy, heart-wrenching, raw chaos in which I was an active player in a game I never signed up for” – as I was also caught in the middle of a messy divorce when I was 8. I think I was too young to properly process and deal with the split and the subsequent ramifications, but I know the whole ordeal helped me to uncover an inner strength and sense of self-reliance that I may not have discovered otherwise. Thank you for sharing such a difficult and personal part of your life, and thank you for the sage advice and inspiration in the final two paragraphs.Ashley recently posted..The Best Things I Ate in 2015

Thank you too, Ashley! I am constantly learning so much from the discussions that take place down here in the comments, and the big take away for me on this one is that many of us wanderers found our independence in a similar fashion. Who would have guessed?

What really resonated with me: “Had I traveled hoping to escape my pain and problems, I would have been sorely disappointed. Instead, I traveled to find the space – mentally and physically – that I needed to dive headfirst into them.”

Great post Alex! I have a friend who is going through some hardships and she and I were discussing them earlier today. I’m going to share this with her as I think your words will help her.Natalie recently posted..The Silent Sister

Thank you for being so vulnerable and sharing this beautifully written post! I was 21 when my family broke apart because of addiction, but I can’t imagine how insane that must be as a 14 year old with everything else changing so much! What you said about forgiveness is so true. Just realizing that as much as things can be terrible, people (our parents especially) are only doing the best they can with what they have. I feel like that’s the definition of forgiveness, to accept people and situations exactly where they’re at. Because really the only thing we can change in this life is our attitudes! And nothing tests that quite like travel, right? As you said, it forces you to confront all of those deep dark feelings! Travel is actually therapy!Eva Casey recently posted..How To Go On a Retreat That Will Change Your Life

I fell into the same divorced parents category as you did. Talking to friends in the other category I’m not sure who had it worse. For me, the divorce was actually the easiest part because it was almost a relief for it to have finally happened after so many years. I 100% don’t prescribe to the ‘staying together for the kids’ idea- it ends up worse for them in the long run. Much like you I think it’s taught me independence, especially being the oldest child- I gained a lot of responsibility when my mum was suddenly a single mum.

Alex as always, I appreciate your continued effort to balance out the “enchanted” side of your life with the more difficult parts. Did you hear about “Post Traumatic Growth” from a Ted Talk perchance? That’s where I first heard the term and find it a fascinating concept. Very relevant to the memoir I just read which I’m sure you’d love if you don’t know it already — “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls. It’s about a chaotic nomadic family whose children thrive despite it all and while this doesn’t speak to your exact situation, I do see a lot of similarities between yourself and the author, a hardworking, scrappy gal who set sail as soon as she could and made her own luck.becky hutner recently posted..Canadian in…London??

No, I had no idea there was a TED talk about it… but I know what I’m googling right after this! I first learned about PTG from an Oprah magazine article — ha! Thank you so much for both suggestions though. I’ll absolutely be checking them out.

Was just reading through all the (really quite moving) comments on this post and was so excited to see a mention of The Glass Castle! One of my favorite books, ever ever. I read it years ago but still think about it all the time.Silvia recently posted..An American in Rauland – Why?

Love. Thanks for sharing and going a bit deeper. ((I also have similar love affair with this poem – and keep the “…so that Death will tremble to take us” posted in my office))

One of the things I’ve noticed is when I start to develop patterns of behaviors (routines), my life starts to feel quite stale.

So even though I don’t travel as much as I used to, I still push myself to do something different every single day – even if it’s just taking a different route to walk from my car to my office! Different staircase, push my lunch back 30 minutes, dig a scarf out I have not worn in a while. Little simple things like that – in between the big adventures – I feel like add up to a much more full life.

I love that Meghan. As someone who is currently pretty stationary — at least as much as I have been in the past five years — I really appreciate this comment and am nodding along to it! There is beauty in routine — and also in breaking it!

This has always been tough for me; pushing on instead of running away. Having been extremely sheltered the first time I had to “walk through fire” I freaked out and up and left. This post was a beautiful reminder that life isn’t always perfect but sometimes that’s okay 🙂

I once had a yoga teacher tell me it was her goal to make students cry in class, and maybe I should make the same goal for blogging, ha. It means a lot to know that this touched you, Chantel. Thank you for reading! <3

“Treat people around you with dignity and love, regardless of if they extend you the same respect.”

I feel like this is so, so important. I’ve been reading/learning a lot about unconditional love lately, and I really agree with you that it’s the key to happiness.

I met a really interesting girl in Guatemala recently who shared a written piece with me about it (about how we need to love unconditionally and without attachment–that way, we give love to whatever is presented to us, because it’s the act of loving that makes us most happy) and I can’t stop thinking about it. Hard to execute, but worth it when you do!Kelly recently posted..Birthday Weekend in Austin: Exploring ATX Like a Local

I love “that the world was endlessly huge and my life within it endlessly small”. That puts into words one of my favorite things travel gives you. Perspective and context. Thank you for sharing your voice on the endlessly huge internet.

Beauty in words! I´m grateful for the good and the bad, in the end it all shaped it to be me.I´m grateful for that. I Know it´s bit down hill for me now.. When you are at the bottom it can´t go further down only upwards, that is a light in the tunnel. This is important to remember.

Hi Alex,
What a fabulously written post.
Thank you for sharing a little more about your life and what set you on the path you walk. Life throws us in many directions I’ve found and for different reasons and it seems you have already had many challenges!

I experienced the breakdown of my marriage – which ended up with my husband and I getting back together exactly at the moment it ended. I needed to travel to heal me, we needed to put our relationship back together and our family had been hurt and that needed dedicated time and attention which couldn’t happen at home, in community in the UK.
My heart had been closed, which I’d never thought possible. But spending time in the world, allowed me to slowly, very slowly open it again whilst taking care of my children at the same time I took care of myself. It connected me with many happy memories of my childhood and the love and care I was given by my parents. It connected me to me and I was humbled by the experience and what I learnt.
This set me on a new path, which is still challenging but I hope leads me where I want to be.

I think life and relationships have so much to teach us and thank you for allowing us to learn through yours. 🙂Janice Stringer recently posted..A Path with a Heart

Love this! I agree that so much of what happened to you in your teens sculpted how independent you are and also made you a bit of a go-getter, and I’m so happy that your family is super close now and also that I GET TO MEET THEM THIS SUMMER.

Dear god this post couldn’t have come at a better time! Without going into too many details, let’s just say it’s been a rough week at work (the work that pays all of my bills and gives me like, sustenance and stuff) and I dearly needed this more-eloquent reminder that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Oof.

But, I’m still about to head home from work (on a Sunday) and buy ice cream. 😛

I love this post Alex but most importantly, I love the fact that you bare all, and put things out there. Your life experience has made you strong, determined and independent.

We can’t choose our childhood or our youth, but we can certainly make things better and choose to live the life we want, the way we want, and look forward with happiness and strength together. And you’ve done that in abundance. The way that you write about your parents and your siblings, shows how much love is shared by the ones who care about you most.Victoria@ The British Berliner recently posted..Think David Bowie! Think Alan Rickman! Think the British Shorts Film Festival!

As someone who first put on a backpack straight after a major bereavement, this post really strikes a cord. Moving from travelling as a form of escape to travelling as a way to grow stronger has been a long time coming – but I’m getting there! Thanks so much for sharing.Emily Hammond recently posted..Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro

Alex – this is such a beautiful and thought-provoking read. It really inspired me and made me think about how I’m living my life! I work seasonally and move around a lot, which I love, but it does get exhausting. Originally I think I fell in love with travel because it gave me an escape from expectations and societal pressure – now it fuels me and allows me to think more clearly about what it is that I want. It didn’t end up being a way to run away – it was a way to distance myself enough to look at my decisions and life objectively. Thank you for this!

Ah, I know how you feel Lauren. Having just got back from an intense six week trip, I’m feeling the exhaustion myself at the moment. I love the way you describe your motivations to travel. Hope I see more of you down here in the comments 🙂

I'm a New York native who left my home to explore the world slowly and thoroughly. I’m just a little obsessed with photography, scuba diving, and reading guidebooks to countries I have no immediate plans to visit.